


The Lavender Year

by heroesinahalfshell91



Category: Hunger Games - Fandom, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mockingjay rebellion, Romance, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4670717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroesinahalfshell91/pseuds/heroesinahalfshell91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hunger Games were always hard for Caesar Flickerman, even with the support of his beloved. The year of the rebellion however, the lavender year, would be harder than even he could imagine, but throughout it all she will remain ever at his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Althea Selkyrk rolled over in bed, the soft luxurious feel of silk tickling her legs as it slid over her form. The room was quiet, and still, save for the slight rustle of bedding, and the eased breathing of her partner beside her. As her awareness of both self and surroundings crept in, the more the cherished sensation of the warm bodies laying so near to one another grew. Inching nearer the young woman ran her feet along the hair of his legs until their limbs were perfectly tangled. When Althea did finally open her eyes she was confronted with the back of a blue haired head, and smiled. 

Caesar Flickerman, he'd been a kindly and oftentimes humorous staple of her childhood, a visitor with ever changing hair and makeup that stopped by every year via television. Not that she had ever taken much pleasure in the Games, oh no, she abhorred them and Caesar with his morbid jokes for that matter as well.

As a child she was quite known for taking up open protests in her own living room over the Games, much to her parents overly exaggerated dismay. As she got older Althea had been widely known as a rabel rouser and a trouble maker, things they, her parents, latched onto with false terror, flaunting it as a way to gain sympathy and attention from friends and neighbors, because they just couldn't understand where they "went wrong."

Althea's face contorted slightly as she thought about it before reaching out to touch the jay blue hair. Fame, fortune, social standing, that was all that had ever mattered to her parents, to most people of the Capitol. Not her though, not Caesar. It was almost ironic then, that when her brash behavior had finally become too much for her parents to even desire association with their then teenage daughter that she should meet him.

It was at a party she hadn't been invited to, the hostess seeing that it was gaudy to the extreme. Bright lights, stark colors, and clashing patterns were strewn everywhere. Gold leaf, and engineered to be edible gem stones on each and every bite of food. Disgusting. The whole charade. Althea had seen the way those who lived in the Districts appeared on camera, dull, gaunt, and many lifeless with hunger, yet here in the Capitol the governing body of the world, they ate gold. It was all Althea could do not to turn over tables within her first ten minutes there, or so she'd told herself.

Showing a maturity and self restraint few people possessed in this place, she'd managed to keep her appall to biting comments, and undermining the decor and catering. Then she'd had far too much to drink and there was little anyone could do to stop her. She was just thinking about doing something dangerously treasonous, when she ran into him, spilling a bit of their drinks to the floor. In his signature midnight blue suit tressed with lights Caesar had been quite a sight and more than a little intimidating. 

His hair and makeup were a canary yellow, his flawless smile broad, friendly, and charming. "Looks like someone can't wait for that autograph!" Caesar had said with a laugh, much to the approval of those around him.

Althea who was burning through the alcohol that night like she had been burning through her short life with devil may care antics had scoffed at him outright. "I wouldn't want your autograph if it would save my life, you, you puffed up peacock!" she had retorted. It wasn't her best, not by a long shot, but she had been drunk, and on a suicide mission at the time. Still, it earned a chuckle from everyone.

"I don't think I've had the pleasure," Caesar said suavely with a small bow as he recovered from the poorly executed insult. "Prickly though a pleasure it is, I'm sure." More laughter from his friends as he kissed the back of Althea's hand. In her stupor the young woman had been slow to react and pulled away too late, his lips making a brief grazing contact before her fingers slid out from between his. 

"Don't touch me!" she had slurred. "You puppet!" she added to again more laugher. Everyone in the Capitol loved a good drunk and a chance for sharp tongued gossip, and she at the moment was providing them with enough of both.

Caesar's face fell, though, if only for a moment, only long enough for Althea to catch it, her wide vacant stare locked onto his deep blue eyes. Turning decidedly back to his friends and ignoring the lush the man offered a small awkward grin of apologies to the group. 

"Good Games this year!" a particularly rotund man with lightning white hair that stuck out in crown like spines was saying.

"Ah yes, good and bloody!" shrilled a jewel studded woman who was at that moment using her glittering seven inch nails to deftly pluck the olive out of Flickerman's empty glass. Again everyone laughed, and it was as though Althea was seeing her world for the first time, despite the fact that it's hideous face was already well known to her. Gluttony, vanity, and self indulgences reigning supreme while people joked and marveled at the spectacle of children made to slay one another. Althea felt sick thinking about it, she was still old enough to be put in the games if she were a District child, and perhaps that was why it had set so poorly with the girl.

"Tell us," the clawed woman who appeared to be the person hosting the celebration went on. "You spoke to the Tributes, did you really think that meek little Johanna Mason would become this year's Victor?" she asked the television show host as the crowd ignored the intoxicated Althea who stared at them dumbfounded by the cruelty of a society she had been born into yet little understood.

Caesar looked into his glass for a long silent moment before offering a non-committal reply. "I always think they could all be Victors." Althea who had always sensed a type of sorrow in the man on screen, a sorrow she never acquitted to empathy for the Tributes sensed it then as well, even if she was slow to the revelation, she would have better recognized the lilt in his tone at that time, had a fire not been building in her belly.

The group chortled as Caesar stole a glass from a passing tray, and drank somberly. "Oh Caesar, always the tease!" laughed the lightning haired man as he ran his fingers down Caesar's back in a way he seemed to think was enticing.

Caesar only smiled an nodded, "Tease, that's me."

"I'll say!" a second woman agreed fingering the wide peak of his lapel.

There was a brief standoff between the sexually charged members of the little quartet. Lighting hair's hand running lower, flat open and groping, while the woman who had orange stained skin slipped her hand into Caesar's jacke, they glared at one another in rivalry. Sipping at his beverage and caught between them the "Face of Panem" looked moderately uncomfortable even if a bit accustomed to being accosted so.

"It was especially thrilling to watch Johanna gut that boy from Five!" the first woman chimed in breaking through the tension and redirecting the conversation back to her. She smiled awkwardly then, as though she had been waiting to bring it up all night and had just never found the right moment. 

When everyone attention seemed properly attuned she slipping into a poor imitation of the boy. "Johanna, no please, don't, I'm sorry-" followed by mock gagging as she gripped at her throat. The others around her quickly joined in feigning pain or trying to stuff imagined entrails back into their body cavities. Everyone of them laughed, except for Caesar who had only a polite smile to offer, but that fact had escaped Althea at the time who sloshed what little was left of her drink into the woman's face.

"You beast!" Althea snarled stepping up to her and taking a fistful of her flowery garments as though it would come to blows. All around them people were agasp, this sort of thing just didn't happen, not at this sort of venue, not in the Capitol. The intended victim herself was a shocked, self indulgent blend of fright and elation as she became, as she always craved to be, the center of attention. "If that were your son-"

"I don't have a son." the nailed woman cut her off, preening her hair with vanity as she did so, after all if everyone was watching she had to look her best.

Althea's mind was a snail's paced whirl of confusion. She muttered something unintelligible about the control greed had on the Capitol and it's citizens before a threatening comment regarding the fall of Snow slipped out, but it was so poorly worded and badly mangled that many took it as a complaint regarding winter weather. The drunk had just reeled her arm back to chuck her glass at the other woman who had managed to get away when Caesar's hand gripped her forearm tightly. "I think someone has had a little too much to drink." he said with laughter in his tone. "Let me see you home." he offered with a type of finality, guiding a confused and slow to react Althea through the crowds.

"Fraud." Althea spat at the man tripping over her own feet as she was half guided, half drug away from the quickly souring situation at hand. "Puppet!"

"It's not as though I like it any more than you!" he hissed lowly into the girl's ear taking them both entirely by surprise. In a bout of anger with himself and the girl his hand became vice like upon her arm shoving her to walk before him. "Now shut up and keep walking."

Althea, recovering from her shock rather quickly, but not the alcohol and slipped in and out of her drunken lull as she failed time and again to direct her escort back to her apartment. In the end Caesar had reluctantly taken her home with him though threats of the more logical solution, that of handing her over to a pair of Peace Keepers, tumbled from his lips every few moments. "Capitol puppet!" she had insulted once more using her favorite line from his plush sofa while he worked at removing her shoes. The man, with saintly patience had let all of her insults fly unchallenged reminding himself that she was just a child, and that he'd been just as out spoken once before, in another life. 

That was until her next comment, "Murderer." Althea spat darkly.

The enraged Caesar who threw her foot away from him leaping up in a maelstrom of smothered emotions unpent after some decades. Bellowing into her face the man brought about a false sobriety in the young woman who watched wide eyed and fearful as he thundered through the living room objects smashing onto the floor or against a wall as he railed and wept inteemediately, for the child Tributes, and himself, trapped as he was.

Althea would be unable to recall all of the man's words that night but their culmination would forever stay with her. "You do not know what it's like to be left with their faces," Caesar, his voice thin, and strained well into a hoarse whisper managed to yell. "Their names, too many of them long lost, but their faces, always there, always so young and frightened, and helpless, made up to be the Capitol's dolls and to know that you can do nothing to help them, nothing save perhaps ease them through their interviews! To know that the odds had never, not once in their lives been in their favor!" he was in tears at this point.

"To watch as they bleed, and die, and cry for a help that will never come, and have to smile, and laugh, and joke for as much their sake as your own, because deep down you know that if the show isn't entertaining enough, if the people are getting bored, that's when the Game Makers send in their horrors. So you keep up the banter to protect them from the worst man can imagine! And finally," Caesar paused here, his voice taking on a sharp, biting tone. "The Victors, 'free' from the Games, having to watch them year after year fade away, destroy themselves, watch them forced to do unspeakable things, just as robbed of the people they should have grown to be as the Tributes who died."

Caesar had closed the distance between them then, a hand resting against the wall on either side of Althea's head with menace. "But you sit there," he said all too calm his eyes red and swollen, yellow makeup smeared and runny. "You sit there, and you judge me."

With that Caesar left her. Althea had felt cold and numb all over, a heavy weight settling over her shoulders, a stabbing pain in her heart. She would come to cry herself to sleep, moved more than ever by the cruelty of the Capitol, moved by Flickerman's pain, and her own self loathing, before seeing herself out the next morning. The young woman would feel hollow for some time afterwards, shamed that although she had always thought him to be kind to the Tributes, relatively speaking, Althea had judged it to be a false kindness, and judged him so poorly, never once thinking of the man as entirely human. How many others had she so cast aside because she did not understand that they, each of them, were trapped in a Games of their own, and all because of her own pride? She wondered.

Moreover she was sick, sick in her soul. Truly seeing herself for the first time she understood her own self-involvement and in a sense, the same vanity that plagued everyone else around her. Yes she cared about the Tributes, about the Districts, and thought the Games were the unspeakably evil, but what did she do to make their lives any better, or to stop the bloodshed? In reality she was just a petty as the rest of them, only with the self-righteous guise of activism to pad her ego.

The utter contempt and hatred the then sixteen year old held for herself would have ended her with a fist full of tranquilizers if it hadn't been for the memory of Caesar and his conviction. Realizing how much he truly cared and grieved was what gave her the strength to step out of her shell of a life, and actually participate in an existence that was passing her by.

The next time she would see Caesar it would be at another public affair, and he was lime green. Charming, kind, and warm she had found herself going home with him once more though far less intoxicated than she had been previously. That was the night they first talked together, cried together, and discovered that neither one of them was as alone and hated in the world as they believed. It wasn't long afterwards that they became friends, stranded in a society blinded to its own savagery and self destruction. Love came into play shortly after.

When he was crimson Althea found herself moved to uncontrollable bouts of laughter at the mere sight of him, but their relationship was already in full bloom and in the public's eye. It was good for him, she thought often. The scandal their drastic age difference, and many humiliating events Althea orchestrated herself brought the people's attention away from his sympathies towards the Tributes and even the occasional subversive comment, or subtle treasonous act. Though unlike what love was for most of the Capitol's citizens who used the word lightly and as an excuse for any sexual excursion or indulgence they currently craved Althea wasn't pretending. She loved the man lying next to her with each and every fiber of her being and felt in the depths of her soul that without him she would be no longer.

A light thoughtful hum on her lips as she watched him sleep the young woman reached out with her other hand now too and fanned Caesar's hair, stroking his head gently as she did so before nosing the skin at the back of his neck and behind his ear treasuring his scent, a scent that meant, if anything, home. 

"Thee," came the muffled voice of her soul mate after a while of repeated motion. "...what are you doing?"

The woman shrugged lightly as he turned looking at her blearily. "Saying goodbye to blue, I'm going to miss it." she confessed nibbling at her lower lip and tugging his hair slightly.

"It that so?" he laughed leaning in close, his sad eyes shining just for her.

"It is precisely so." she giggled, hands moving to his chest. Caesar laughed again, his morning breath wafting over towards her and the woman wrinkled her nose playfully. Althea hated that she loved his morning breath, honestly, what was wrong with her?

"Lavender, tomorrow then." he said tugging on the single lock of blue that stood out against her russet tresses. She had been dying it to match him since the twilight days of lime. "But today, I think we should just stay in bed." 

The pair giggled, their lips locking during the laughter that followed as Caesar fingers tickled over Althea's bare abdomen and then around her waist pulled her close. Althea played the tease, rolling over and kicking playfully as the couple spooned and Caesar's hands caressed her. Many enticing thoughts ran through the woman's mind warming her to the core and other places in the most tantalizing ways.

A day in bed had never sounded better.


	2. Chapter 2

Althea had quickly come to the conclusion that lavender was a terrible choice in color. The singular lock of hair that she had, had dyed kept managing to work it's way into her peripheral vision causing her to turn. It was foreign, a stranger, an ugly and unwelcome guest of a color where her eyes expected to find blue, and kept catching her off guard as a result. The woman knew it would just take time to grow accustomed to it, it always did, and then it would just be another lock of hair like all the others. For now however, she allowed herself the shallow pleasure of being annoyed with something so trivial.

After a while of trial and error the young woman who sat curled on the sofa had finally managed to lose herself in a book. Reading being an unheard of pastime in the Capitol, Althea had a very limited variety of material to choose from, and none of it was any good. At the moment she was reading a book titled, To Fly, by Balius Rollo. Thus far it was a poorly worded imagining of the life of a yet to be identified bird, beginning in the egg. 

Althea found herself wondering exactly how it had gotten published in the first place, it was full of incoherent ramblings about the varying hues and shades of color the unhatched chick had to examine in his, or her eggshell, a longing for more lavish accommodations, and the knowledge that one day flight would be more than just a dream. It was garbage in her opinion. Written by an unimaginative man who was merely seeking praise for finishing the book rather than the fulfillment of actually creating something. There were also so many spelling and grammatical errors throughout that she was beginning to question the way she perceived sentence structure.

It was better though, by far, than watching the recap of the past Games which were streaming in loudly on the television across from her, a means to get everyone amped and ready for the Quell. Normally the device wouldn't be allowed on in their home, but with others present it was almost a requirement.

Distracted with trying to decipher a poorly phrased soliloquy about longing for feathers made of diamond, Althea was startled briefly by the appearance of her un-officiated fiancee before getting a good look at him. Caesar, who had been uncharacteristically quiet all morning now had hair that seemed unnaturally fluffy and light where it sat like a floral hued cloud atop his head. While by contrast his complexion seemed much darker, shinnier even than it had before. Faust, Caesar's personal stylest who was moody during Althea's dye hurried him away though before she could even get a word out.

Likely for a make-up trial, or screen test, or most likely because of Faust's personal disdain for the woman, she thought. It wasn't that Althea had done any to him out right, but merely the thought of taming the illustrious Games Host had been one favored among the Capitol elite, and here Althea, a no one before meeting Caesar had succeeded.

Staring at her book without reading then, Althea couldn't help but reflect on Caesar's new look, she hoped he liked it. From there her ponderings led thorough the various alleys and passageways of the mind and the woman found herself wondering about the life of habitual dyers and modifiers. What were their days like? What was it like for those closest to them? Was every mirror, pane of glass, or corner turned the source of fright and anxiety until some semblance of familiarity could be found with the face, the reflection looking back at you, constantly haunted by the thing you'd become? She thought it was likely so.

After a while Althea began to grow restless, and flipped through large portions of her book, skimming through the horrid descriptions and analogies within. Halfway through the thing she discovered that the bird, still unidentified, was still confined in its egg. Closing it with a grunt of annoyance the woman looked up and wished immediately that she hadn't. There, on screen, filling her vision was little Rue, her gentle coffee brown face contorted as she screamed for Katniss. 

A dull, sickening thud permeated the air as a spear, seemingly appeared from no where and thrust deep into the abdomen of her frail form. Teary eyed Althea forced the book back open and began to read greedily as a half strangled scream worked it's way up from her throat. She hated Snow, hated the Game Makers, and hatred herself for all of the violent and bloody ends she wished the wretched beasts would come to, because wishing it made her no different from them.

After that the minutes dragged on into hours, and the endless stream of violence was beginning to get to her. When Althea finally seemed ready to break Caesar reappeared.

She didn't look up immediately when he sat down beside her, attempting instead to look busy and a touch self-absorbed for any prying eyes that might be lingering still, though, she did lean against his shoulder, a subtle affirmation of her love and support for him, and her need of his in return. 

Rather than looking to Caesar when she spoke Althea very decidedly kept her eyes on the page. "Faust gone?" she asked maintaining an even tone.

"Yes." came Caesar's reply as he, shifting his position, wrapped an arm about her.

"So, we're alone?" Althea pressed wanting no longer to listen to the cries of dying children, and the forced commentary of her greatest love.

"Yes." Caesar replied though his teeth, his tone dripping with self despise, while from the television came a more cheerful version of the man's voice, laughing at the carnage.

"Good!" Althea picked up the remote and shut off the television ending nightmarish spectacle before turning with a forced smile hoping to break through his gloom. Beaming as she was, and prepared to ask how he liked the new look the woman gasped in shock at the sight of him instead. "Caesar your face, what happened?" she shrilled.

Bolting up right the woman reached out cupping his red, swollen visage, with it's skin pulled unnaturally tight between her hands. "Don't touch it!" Caesar winced pulling away. There was a stretch of silence where Althea just gawked at him with a sad, almost disappointed sense of surprise. "They were afraid my age was showing." he muttered at last. "So they did some work."

Althea felt betrayed as tears began trekking down her cheeks. She always tried to stay strong for him, but this was too much, and she crossed her arms angrily. "And you didn't tell me?" she asked in a broken manner.

Caesar shook his head like a school boy caught in a lie. "I didn't want to upset you." he confessed. The fiery tempered woman was about to ring him out, let him know precisely what she thought of such bodily modifications when the man managed what she thought was a smile. "I feel it though, my age." he said, completely disarming her and dousing her flames.

"Come now," she said trying to soothe him after the silence had become unbearable. "You don't look a day over thirty."

Caesar took Althea's hands in his own as he shook his head. "That's the problem, next year I'll be sixty and while I might not look it, I feel it in my bones. Soon I won't be able to do anything. I'll be too stiff and tired to even hold you." Althea frowned, unsure of how to help. They'd never discussed this, everything else under the sun yes, but never age, not in general or even the difference between them and how it might affect their lives in the long run, that was for the tabloids to worry about.

Caesar truthfully was nearly three times Althea's age, and, save for Caesar's chivalrous and adimate denyal of his initial feelings it had never made the slightest bit of difference to either one of them, until now. She didn't like it. 

"So, hold me now." Althea pouted, crawling into his lap and nuzzling her head beneath his chin.

Caesar adjusted himself to where it was most comfortable and then wrapped the woman in a warm loving embrace, a puffy lipped kiss coming to rest on the crown of her head. They sat like this for a while, Althea cherishing Caesar's warmth, and the steady beat of his heart. "I can't do this." he said, taking her by surprise as his voice reverberated through her. "I can't do this, not for another year, not for another thirty... I can't keep watching them die and act like I don't care about it."

Althea again could think of nothing to say that would be of comfort to the man she loved as he began trembling with fear and sorrow, half sobs escaping him as he tried to suppress his emotions, and stay strong for her. The woman hated her inability, hated when she failed to uphold her part of the relationship and support Caesar, like a bridge half built, but she was fighting her own tears now. This was all too sudden, all too real, and far too close to home.

"Its going to be alright." she murmured, still clinging to hope for the rebellion which could cost them their lives at any moment for mere association, let alone collaboration and participation. "Soon you won't have to anymore, soon there won't be any more Games, not ever."

"Promise?" Caesar asked, scaring Althea with how weak and vulnerable he sounded as the dam holding back his tears broke in flooding waves.

Sitting up her heart racing Althea pulled Caesar's head down to rest in her lap. "I promise." she said, stroking his cheek in a cautious but loving fashion. Fear nagged at her soul, but it was beyond her ability to process at the moment, not with Caesar crumbling to dust before her. She had to help him, had to make him strong again, because he had to be strong if they were to survive the approaching Quell. Crying, she thought then as she rubbed his back, couldn't be good for him, not so soon after a procedure but these troubled thoughts she kept to herself.


End file.
